Jurij Tepes wins the qualification

Jurij Tepes -

Jurij Tepes won the qualification for the individual competition in Willingen. In front of 7500 spectators the Slovene jumped on 139 m and scored 126.1 points.

Manuel Poppinger came in second with 135 m and 121.6 points, a very good result for him. The same applies for Stefan Hula, who scored 117.8 points with his jump on 131 m and finished third.

The field was very close behind the Top 3. Only 0.1 point behind Hula, Robert Kranjec was fourth with 136.5 m. The fifth place went to Jakub Wolny with 129.5 m and 117.5 points. For the 2014 Junior World Champion, who made his comeback in the Continental Cup in December after a year long break due to a knee injury, this was only the second appearance in the World Cup. 0.3 points behind Wolny, Manuel Fettner was sixth, followed by Jan Matura in seventh with 116.9 points.

Polish team with positive trend

Behind Andreas Stjernen (116.5 points), Andrzej Stekala (115.7 points) completed the good result for Poland in this qualification in ninth. Andreas Wank was the best German in tenth with 114.6 points. French Vincent Descombes Sevoie confirmed his good shape from the 4-Hills-Tournament in 11th, Swiss Luca Egloff came in on a good 12th place. Behind the Czech duo Roman Koudelka and Jakub Janda, Ville Larinto completed the Top 15. Stephan Leyhe was only 18th on his home hill, but he came in ahead of world record holder Anders Fannemel.

Four Russians qualified

In absence of the entire Japanese team, that had to return home to compete in an event of a sponsor, three Russian athletes, Ilmir Hazetdinov, Evgeniy Klimov, Denis Kornilov and Vladislav Boyarintsev qualified in 20th, 21st, 33rd and 40th. Also the Kazakh brothers Marat and Radik Zhaparov qualified for the competition in 35th and 36th. Kevin Bickner and Michael Glasder will represent the USA in Sunday's individual competition.

Freund and Freitag impressive

While 4-Hills-Tournament winner Peter Prevc skipped today's training and qualification, his main rival Severin Freund showed the longest jump this evening with 140.5 m. His teammate Richard Freitag already set a highlight in training with 147.5 m. Stefan Kraft and Domen Prevc posted very good jumps on 139 m and 138.5 m.

On Saturday a team competition will be held in Willingen at 6:00 pm CET, the individual competition follows on Sunday at 3:45 pm CET.